AMERICAN EX

An expatriate view of 'Homeland' America By Thomas McCay

Thursday, July 21, 2005

THE PROBLEM WITH LIES

Lying is part of human nature. It is literally in our genes. Primates rely upon deception and misdirection as an important and oft practiced social and survival skill. So does the human primate. It is a fact.

You tell the bank clerk you forgot your pass book when in fact, you never bring it. You tell the beggar, sorry, I don't have anything, when you do have a thing but you'd really like to scream at him for being a bum. All matter of lies are part of avoiding conflict, avoiding attention, and avoiding blame. Getting support, getting attention, and getting praise.

Whether you believe deception and misdirection, or lying, is encoded in our nervous systems or if you believe it is a sin, invented by some malign god, i.e. the Devil, the effect is the same.

When the lies used to justify ourselves, become more numerous and more important than truth, when real communication becomes impossible because nothing and no one can be believed, political and social disorder are next on the menu.

We are in a strange state in America. Never before has 'morality' been a hotter and more frequently talked about subject. Yet, the superficial culture of lies, deception, misdirection, commercial seduction and enticement, and perception manipulation, has become the dominant social and moral culture of the United States. An empire that has lost it's moral centre.

Every lie creates a bodyguard of more lies, held in place by the need to hide the first lie.I once knew a man who, for reasons I do not understand, would tell everyone he knew, really terrible, sometimes bizarre lies about his wife. At some point he would pull you aside or invite you to lunch and seemingly pour his heart out with some strange unpleasant story about his wife. A story in which he was the innocent victim.

Once you had heard the big story about the terrible thing the wife is and the thing she did, you would never get a chance to be alone with the woman again. The guy went to incredible lengths to keep people separate, always talking to each one individually. Then making sure his wife was absent or very guarded at social situations. A lot of work and a lot of lies went into to trying to maintain the original lies. Many of their friends actually believed the stories until finally, too many people compared notes.

Now, no one who knows him, believes anything he says, about anything at all.

I mention this because Blair, then Bush, Rove, and the whole White House gang, are becoming mired in the complexity of their own multi layered web of lies and supporting fabricated 'facts'. Lies explained away and justified, by yet more lies.

A couple of examples: Coming up to the last election, the Terrorist Alert index was raised to orange, in an obvious attempt by the White House to use the so called alert system as a political tool, to aid the President in the election. Bush came under a lot of criticism when it was discovered that the justification given for the orange alert, was based upon intelligence that was four years old. In other words, a couple of big old hairy lies involving the state security apparatus, used for purely political purposes.

Well, that was looking pretty bad. Desperate for something to justify the original lie,the Bush White House revealed that a well placed Al Qaeda operative, a computer expert, had been arrested by the Pakistanis. Tom Ridge, then head of homeland security, did not name the agent but revealed enough about him that he was easy to identify. The White House gang justified their previous political actions, by revealing that Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan was a double agent. A young computer expert, important to communications. Khan had a plan for bombing the London subway in his computer.

He was arrested and 'turned' by Pakistani security agents. He was proving to be a valuable source for learning the locations of sleeper cells in various locations.

Mohammad Noor Khan represented a major intelligence coup. Turning a man, as well placed as Khan is a rare and lucky event. Numerous terror cells may have been rolled up. But, for purely political reasons, the White House, blew the cover and the usefulness of this rare variety of intelligence find. An active, well placed, Al Qaeda agent.

Oddly enough, MI5, in Britain had gotten leads, via this agent, regarding a cell that was beginning to form, in and around Leeds. The cell was planning to bomb the subway.But, suddenly his fellow terrorists discover Mr. Khan has been arrested and given information. The British were forced to roll up the cell prematurely laying a dozen petty charges that only warned the cell that they were known.

Now we are told that the young men who carried the bombs, in the recent London bombings, were mostly from Leeds. Obviously, it would appear that a new now undetected cell had formed and carried out the original plan.

That is, if we are to believe official reports. How many lies to you try to believe before you quit believing anything government officials say. Knowing that the story will change in a day or two and previous, obviously erroneous statements, will be dropped and forgotten.

The Valerie Plame outing is another clear case of persons in the White House, willfully damaging national security for short term domestic political reasons. Shameful.

Numerous lies have already been revealed from Rove and the White House press secretary. Previous strong statements, made by Scott McClellan will not be commented on. The President, who figured no one would get caught, once said he would fire anyone guilty of such a leak.

Now, Bush just can't go and fire his political brains, can he? Of course not. A couple of days ago, in his sternest stage voice, Bush declares that now he will fire anyone in his administration, guilty of a crime. Emphasis, mine. But really, the emphasis belongs to George, doesn't it?

Lies, to cover lies, with yet more lies. Creating the ground work for yes, more lies.

All of this to get revenge for some one telling the truth about Saddam's actual military capabilities. A web of lies, to cover previous lies and to provide a setting for lies to come.

A very important CIA asset, specializing in searching for weapons of mass destruction, is outed. Made invalid, useless, blown. Her various networks and international contacts, suddenly exposed. The harm can not be accurately assessed.

Lies and more lies to cover venal, short term, political goals, for the White House.

The problem with lies is that eventually, no one, friend or foe, can believe anything you say. No one can trust you. No one can trust your administrative or intelligence officials, at any level.

How can the CIA guarantee the safety of potential agents when they can't protect themselves from White House whims?

The security agencies from other countries can not rely on the Americans to be partners in sharing intelligence. Try to imagine, that if any country ever again turns an important Al Qaeda operative, the CIA, the Americans, will likely be the very last to know. You can't trust the Americans because you never know what their motives are. Everything in America has become politicized. The agenda is never completely on the table.

In the minds of the White House gang, it's all a political power game. A game played with so many lies, the truth becomes meaningless. It's all about what you can get away with. Bush has gotten away with a lot in his life time. Pretty well everything, judging by his protected, privileged existence.

Given the reality portrayed by the Downing Street Memos and related documents, the lies revealed by those memos, and even the lies that were planed re "Fixing the intelligence, to fit the policy", it is hard to even care what these people say. You know it is not the truth, before they even start talking.

For those who still want to believe in this criminal madness, I have got to ask. How many more lies are you prepared to swallow before you admit you've allowed your self to be duped?

Duped by an arrogant, down talking, fake cowboy of a billionaire, intent upon making the world free and easy for his own class. A class, to which, you do not belong. Though you do get to pay their taxes for them and fight for their further enrichment, and come back and work at Wal-Mart if you've been a good little drone and you aren't too crippled and don't mind shit pay, long hours, no respect, and no loyalty. Sort of like the Army only the pay is even worse. No benefits, at all.

Yep, that's America, the greatest country on earth if you happen to be very rich.

For the rest of us? Lies upon lies, covered by lies upon lies. It just sort of blends in with the commercials for some folks.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

The Return of American Ex

Friends, readers, Romans, and the interested,

I am Almost back. The novel nears it's end and once again I should have enough brain power to revive the blog. When I left, I expected to be posting the occasional article. It did not work out that way as I found I could not get my small head around both. This is my first novel. Perhaps eventually, I shall be able to write fiction and politically motivated articles, at the same time.

The world has not improved since I took off. In fact, it has gotten even worse and even more dangerous. Iraqi citizens are still being killed by the truck load, for the crime of being born Iraqi. The terrorist activities of the Americans, indiscriminate bombings, mass arrests, medieval torture prisons, and daily shootings of civilians, have turned a once stable society into bedlam.

Every thing in Iraq is much, much worse than before the Americans came to 'liberate' the place for American and corporate control.

The Bushbaby and his neocon supporters are still pretending there is a connection between Saddam and 9/11. Osama ben Laden is still free because there was never any real White House interest in getting the bastard. Bush and co. are too busy dismantling Iraq and turning it into the radical hotbed it never could have been, under Saddam.

Republicans and Bush appointees control every branch of government and the Supreme court, in one sitting has wiped out property rights for ordinary Americans, in favour of special corporate rights, allowing cities to make economic determinations for who may or may not own property in American cities.

At the same time the court gave AOL/Time Warner, the telephone companies, Disney, and big IT companies, content control of the internet, declaring that the big companies do not have to share broad band lines with anyone they don't want to share them with. Effectively giving the big IT giants control of of the 'net'. Soon, a server offering content the big companies don't like, will be blocked from broad band lines. That's freedom of expression, the New American style.

They couldn't quite make up their minds regarding state support of religious doctrine. But that isn't surprising, it was the only thing in this traitorous Court's agenda that did not put money and special rights into the hands of the big corporations, who now dictate American social and foreign policy.

Just when Americans of every walk were beginning to finally ask the hard questions regarding this corrupt president and his pro corporate, anti democratic agenda, Bush is saved by another terrorist attack, this time in London. The bombings could not have happened at a better time for Blair and Bush. It is difficult not to at least wonder who is actually directing some of these attacks.

What would Bush and the other neo-con chicken hawks do without Al Qaeda?

Suddenly, Carl Rove outing a deep cover CIA agent, for political revenge against her husband, is not front page news. A very serious crime committed for the most petty, most venal reasons. Because the agent's husband wrote a knowledgeable expose' of one of Bush's big lies, intended to justify his personal war ambitions. The African yellow cake uranium that Saddam never actually purchased. Once again, the 'intelligence' was fixed, to support the policy.

American soldiers are still being killed in Iraq and more and more, the old excuses for the Vietnam tragedy, are being dusted off to excuse staying with this dangerous unwinnable conflict.Still, the VA can not nearly serve the needs of the returning wounded who are booted out of the Army hospitals as fast as possible, with the promise that the VA will take care of them.

Every week, the insurgency becomes stronger and every week, some White House liar repeats, the now tired old BS, that the insurgency is in it's death agonies.

Bush and his mouth pieces still describe their enemies in terms that clearly describe the policies and actions of the Bush regime

A good number of mindless Americans, hip deep in debt, working their asses off, for a future that looks bleaker every day, still pretend that this is like World War II, and America isn't really playing the role of the Germans and Imperial Japanese. After all, we are the good guys, no matter what we do, right?

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The world has not improved since I started my novel, so I shall be back, at least once a week I have missed the blog and the responses from readers, of every opinion. I do wish the righties would speak up but they continue to be shy about speaking outside their own circle of believers.

For those who have wondered, I'm in the last twenty or so pages of the first draft of the novel. It has taken about three months to get this far. Yes, my readers here will be the first to know when it is published.

About Me

Raised from age three in small town and semi rural areas of Alabama, I am something of a converted redneck. A 'leftneck' as a Virginia friend calls himself. Being a product of one of the lowest appendages of American culture and sink holes of the economy, I represented class A cannon fodder during the Vietnam war.
I ended my Air Force enlistment, without permission, in 1969. I have lived in Canada since 1970.
The horrible din made by the destruction of American democracy, inspires and prods me to write about what I see from my expatriate view of America.